De Colo, defense let CSKA romp in Tel Aviv

After qualifying first to the playoffs, CSKA Moscow took aim at its next goal, a top-four finish, by shutting down host Maccabi FOX Tel Aviv 73-93 on Thursday. CSKA raised its first-place record to 19-5 and got closer to clinching home-court advantage in the playoffs. Maccabi dropped to 12-12 but still clings to the eighth and final playoffs spot. An 18-30 second-quarter surge led by Cory Higgins and Nando De Colo gave the visitors double-digit leads for the rest of the game as CSKA's defense turned back every hint of a Maccabi revival. De Colo paced the winners with 19 points, while Higgins had 16 and Will Clyburn 10. Norris Cole scored 13, Johan Bolden 12 and Alex Tyus 10 for Maccabi, but 5-for-23 three-point shooting (21.7%) and 14 turnovers were too many mistakes to threaten CSKA.

Bolden's put-back slam got the game rocking, but Nikita Kurbanov scored 6 points in a 0-8 takeover run for CSKA. Cole hit a jumper and found Bolden inside to steady Maccabi at 6-8. Semen Antonov downed the game's first triple, but Artsiom Parakhouski and Cole cut the difference to 10-11. Clyburn's first basket was followed by Bolden's back-door dunk at 12-13. De Colo's first points came on a second-chance triple. DeAndre Kane and Kyle Hines traded inside baskets before Bolden and Sergio Rodriguez did the same on jumpers. Tyus entered with a second-chance dunk but CSKA held on by 18-22 after 10 minutes. Higgins started the second quarter with a pair of fastbreak slams, the second on an alley-oop pass from Rodriguez, whose finger-roll soon meant a high lead of 18-29. Deshaun Thomas canned Maccabi's first triple in seven tries and Cole converted a steal by Pierre Jackson. Higgins hit another jumper that Tyus answered with an alley-oop dunk and another basket that closed the gap to 28-33. Victor Rudd scored his first points in a CSKA uniform and De Colo converted a steal at 28-37. A huge slam and free throws by Bolden offset 4 more points from De Colo. Leo Westermann's triple and put-back preceded another pair of De Colo baskets for a high lead until then of 34-50. Parakhouski stopped the bleeding for Maccabi but Higgins answered and CSKA cruised into halftime ahead 36-52.

Rodriguez and Clyburn scored second-chance baskets for a new high lead, 37-56, out of the break. Jackson finally got Maccabi's first basket on a breakaway 3 minutes in. Parakhouski's reverse layup was followed by dueling triples from De Colo and John Di Bartolomeo, then dueling jumpers by Clyburn and Cole. Parakhouski's dunk made it 48-61, but Kurbanov and Clyburn boosted CSKA. Michael Roll came alive with 5 points in a row for the hosts, forcing a CSKA timeout at 53-65. Westermann fed Hines for a dunk and Cole answered from deep to lower the difference to 56-67 after 30 minutes. Westermann loaded up his second triple to open the fourth quarter and Cole drove for a layup. Higgins fed Hines for dunk and scored his own fastbreak. Thomas drained a triple and Jackson made 2 free throws to give Maccabi hope at 63-74. But there the hope ended as Andrey Vorontsevich scored twice in close as CSKA's defense took over and Clyburn spun for a bank shot to make it 63-80 with less than 4 minutes left. The handwriting was on the wall and it said the victory was going back to Moscow with the most dominant team in the league thus far this season.

Head Coaches

SPAHIJA, NEVEN

Maccabi FOX Tel Aviv

"First of all I would like to congratulate CSKA for the beautiful basketball tonight. We tried. We did some things and had some momentum during the game, but every time we had the chance to do something more, we missed open shots or turned over the ball. At the end, they are way better. I would say even two different planets. We are not even close to CSKA. I cannot say anything to my players because they really tried, they fought. But CSKA was as way better team. What bothered me most is we don't turn over the ball in the EuroLeague. We are one of the best teams in the EuroLeague at avoiding turnovers and today we had 16 turnovers. And all of them CSKA took straight to our basket, making it impossible to set up our defense. And that was the key to the game. They won by 20 and a lot of those were fastbreak points. We limited them to 6 threes, their lowest of the season, but their quality and their possibility to play inside as well outside lets them play against everybody. Even when they don't score, they are able to win."

ITOUDIS, DIMITRIS

CSKA Moscow

"I would like to congratulate my team. I think we were the better team tonight. They played a very mature game, a very smart game, I would say. We managed to force 16 turnovers on them on their own court. We managed not to give them open-court chances, where it's tough to stop an athletic team like Maccabi. Even though we didn't shoot well from the outside, we controlled the game from the very beginning. We had our moments, of course, especially in the third quarter, when we couldn't operate well. They put a lot of pressure on our ballhandlers and we played it wrong against one of their best defenders, Kane. But we found a way to operate differently, with post-ups and driving the ball, which was very important. Maccabi was one of the best rebounding teams before the game and we won that battle, so overall we were the better team and once again I say congratulations to my team for a big win. To be continued and good luck to Maccabi."

"We're going step by step. We have a huge desire in practices, on a daily basis. Our routine is based on determination. We try to play a lot of situations out of our comfort zone in practice, because this is what we're going to face down the stretch. We have a very competitive league and it's not easy to play at the highest level with all the absences, players coming in, coming out. So I congratulate my players for being mature. We had our moments, our bad moments, but overall when we force 16 turnovers here and we keep ourselves below 10, that says a lot. Because when CSKA has a lot more possessions than the other team, we're not going to be easy to stop."

Players

PARAKHOUSKI, ARTSIOM

Maccabi FOX Tel Aviv

"They were more aggressive than us. They are the best team in the EuroLeague for now and they showed that today on the court. We need to watch video, but I think we didn't do a good job on defense. They scored whenever they missed a shot. Against a team like CSKA you need a perfect game to win and we didn't have a perfect game today."

DIBARTOLOMEO, JOHN

Maccabi FOX Tel Aviv

"It's not the outcome we wanted. They are a good team and we didn't do what we needed to do to stay with them. At the end of the day, we need to learn from it and move on, because the next game is all the more important now."

DE COLO, NANDO

CSKA Moscow

We had time to prepare this game, almost a week, and we practiced pretty good. We knew that it's a team that plays a lot of open court, so that's what we worked on during the week. And tonight I think we played pretty good defense altogether."